Infants and other incontinent individuals wear absorbent articles such as incontinent pads and diapers to receive and contain urine and other body exudates. Absorbent articles function both to contain discharged materials and to isolate these materials from the body of the wearer and from the wearer's garments and bed clothing. Disposable absorbent articles having many different basic designs are known to the art.
There is a growing awareness of the lack of satisfactory products designed for mobile persons with incontinent infirmities. While sanitary napkins, pantiliners, disposable briefs and diapers are available for the mobile incontinent person, such products are not satisfactory from either a comfort or a protection standpoint. Catamenial products such as pantiliners and sanitary napkins are very comfortable to use. However, these products fail to achieve a satisfactory level of containment for high void levels of urine. While diapers and briefs meet the containment needs of the incontinent person, these products lack the comfort and discreteness available from sanitary napkins and pantiliners.
Thus, it is desirable to provide an absorbent article such as an incontinent pad that is comfortable and discrete, yet provides superior protection and containment. In order to achieve the goal of providing such an absorbent article, it is necessary that the absorbent article be capable of rapidly accepting and containing a large volume of liquid within a small surface area; rapidly distributing the liquid efficiently throughout the product; conforming to the body of the wearer; maintaining good body contact (i.e., the maintenance of the article in close proximity to and in conformity with the body of the wearer); and maintaining its integrity even when wetted so as to be effective to accept and contain a subsequent discharge or gush of liquid and to prevent rewet (i.e., recontact of liquids contained in the article with the skin of the wearer due to forces that squeeze the liquid out of the article).
A method for increasing the absorbency of absorbent articles is to provide them with absorbent gelling materials. Absorbent gelling materials are materials which are capable of absorbing large quantities of liquids and which are further capable of retaining such absorbed liquids under moderate pressures. The absorption characteristics of absorbers gelling materials make such materials especially useful for incorporation into absorbent articles such as incontinent pads. Because absorbent gelling material swells and expands upon being wetted, an absorbent core containing absorbent gelling material will also expand when wetted. Because the overwrap is generally firmly affixed around the absorbent article, the only space available for expansion of the absorbent core is within the interior of the absorbent article. Therefore, there is a need to identify absorbent articles having absorbent cores containing absorbent gelling material wherein the overwrap can expand to accommodate the expansion of the absorbent core. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide absorbent articles with an expansion means allowing the overwrap to expand as the absorbent core expands.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article having an overwrap and a releasing means so that when the absorbent core containing absorbent gelling material expands when wetted, the overwrap will expand as the absorbent gelling material expands.
The above and other objectives of the present invention will be more readily apparent when considered in reference to the following description and when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.